Gamestops around the country are basically clearancing off their original DS games, selling carts in torn and dusty blank CD cases without the original case or instruction manual for as little as one dollar.

As I’ve been cherry picking these local bargain bins, I came across Greg Hastings Tournament Paintball MAX’D DS for $1. Normally I would not give an FPS on the original DS a second thought but I decided to add it to my growing collection of naked DS carts.  For a buck, what do I have to lose, right?

Thing is, I actually met Greg at E3 many years ago as he was there promoting his new game which happens to be published by Activision – the publisher of another very popular FPS. During his one-on-one demo, he was promoting the console version of the game, not this DS version. Because I never actually had the chance to play or fully review his game on any platform outside of my 10 minute E3 demo I figured now I can test it out several years later.

Upon first booting it up, this is what plays:

Yeah, ok, so. Is this probably the best opening intro ever? Or is it the worse? I can’t figure it out. It just keeps going! Let me know your feedback in the comments below.

As for the gameplay, well, it plays about as good as you would expect an early DS, non-violent FPS to be. The tutorial actually wants players to use the thumb nub that was only bundled with the original, first DS clamshell model! But I guess this DS version is better than the GBA version…